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Do You Have Spider Mite ?


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I had them once and it came from a clone given by a trusted friend.

 

If you bring in a new clone try submersing it completely in cold water for a few minutes. It won't hurt the plant but the mites hate it.

Keep it segregated for a couple weeks and dip it in water every day. That way if there are eggs that hatch they won't have time to grow.

 

If you see mites you can actually rinse them off with running water.

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Thanks for all the replies. Wild Bill nailed it also as so did grassmatch. I took a clone and didn't rinse the entire plant. Although it was a very big clone (pic below) I not only should have rinsed the soil before switching it into one of my RDWC undercurrent set up, I should have done what wild bill said and cleaned the whole plant. Well last night I quietly with much stealth moved the entire RDWC setup outside minus the lights of course into a make shift greenhouse I built using 6 2" PVC pipes wrapped with 3ml clear plastic!!! I was able to borrow an ozone machine and a a 40lb C02 tank. My plants are outside in the ghetto green house and the C02 tank (GOOD CALL GRASSMATCH) is currently filling my grow room with the ventilation off. I'm going to let it run until it triggers the C02 alarm that's outside the fake sealed door going to the grow room through what's now just a small closet only holding a few winter coats which also has a regular door on it. I don't have a meter but once it creeps through the fake wall door & closet door which is weakest part of the rooms seal because the rest is lined with a layer of 4 mil moisture barrier, 2" foam insulation board, then some diamond pattern anti IR mylar type material that's pretty thick but obviously the door is the weak spot so once it creeps past the fridge seal I ran around it & alarms I'm going to turn off the breaker that's controlling the cracker so it stops. Just going to leave it like that while I take all my plants one bucket at a time & dunk them in a clean new 36 gallon trash can filled with ozonated water. They are all very small still as the one in the picture is the biggest right now. My friend said if you dunk the plants upside down in the ozonated water (if they are still small enough) I guess it makes all the mites let go and drown or die. He said it works so I'll see. Then after I'm done with that I should be able to turn on my vents at the breaker, super charge my nutrient solution by ozonating it and reassemble everything inside when it gets dark. I hope it works.. :(

post-39107-0-08412300-1438114798_thumb.jpg

Edited by Big Jae
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  • 4 weeks later...

Any one used Green Cleaner for mites? Stopped to grow store today and got a small bottle.

 

Inert ingredients: Water, Soapbark, Isopropyl Alcohol, Sodium Chloride, and Magnesium Sulfate for 70%. Other 30 % is corn oil and soybean oil, equal portion.

 

Bottle says to use 2 oz. per gallon of water as initial application, then 1 oz. per gallon for secondary application and so on.

 

No protective gear needed, Green Cleaner is all natural. Literature says it kills the eggs also (isopropyl alcohol).

 

Not sure how much of this I believe.

 

I will experiment with the Green Cleaner and report back.

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believe it. any oil will smother eggs and mites resulting in death. you can make your own emulsified oil treatment. soybean/canola/cooking oils should be avoided but will work. peppermint, limonene, lemon grass....all better choices. Ice water/cold shots kills mites. soap kills them too. avoiding them is easier than eradicating them I think.

the issue is with rebirth/reintroduction of the borg b'tards with eggs being more difficult to kill than spiders. Even when they're gone, they remain in many cases. Outside infection is difficult to prevent, indoors is grower habit related. Long grow times, mite food, infected visitors are leading suspects. If mites are on a bud, I'd cut the bud off and burn it while laughing. spraying buds does not have positive results. If a whole plant is infested I'd bag it and burn it whole. sorry they found you.

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GM: Thanks for the info.

 

Outdoor grow with only a few plants, will check every three days and do a maintenance program on the plants. Plan for now is treat every three days until all traces of mites are gone. Also have a herbal tea mixture to use after initial treatment.

 

Sprayed with the Green Cleaner this morning and took off a couple leaves so I can check to see if eggs die also.

 

Plant that had most mites has just started to flower, so got 8 weeks to watch.

 

Notice we don't have any lady bugs this year, most years lots of them are around.

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GM: Thanks for the info.

 

Outdoor grow with only a few plants, will check every three days and do a maintenance program on the plants. Plan for now is treat every three days until all traces of mites are gone. Also have a herbal tea mixture to use after initial treatment.

 

Sprayed with the Green Cleaner this morning and took off a couple leaves so I can check to see if eggs die also.

 

Plant that had most mites has just started to flower, so got 8 weeks to watch.

 

Notice we don't have any lady bugs this year, most years lots of them are around.

yeah, up the sides of the house, in and out, in the air, all over the place...I could smell those ladybugs in past years!. this year, I've seen two so far. I see those nasty attitude bees have moved along only to be replaced with all these ground nesting little devils. I see more of those big black wasps and no more of those brown wasps of yesteryear(those hurt real bad). We missed the apple harvest in our orchard two years ago, (first time in a hundred years I hear)! I wonder of all the changes taking place...as I head over to Growgoddess' blog..... :bong2:

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yeah, up the sides of the house, in and out, in the air, all over the place...I could smell those ladybugs in past years!. this year, I've seen two so far. I see those nasty attitude bees have moved along only to be replaced with all these ground nesting little devils. I see more of those big black wasps and no more of those brown wasps of yesteryear(those hurt real bad). We missed the apple harvest in our orchard two years ago, (first time in a hundred years I hear)! I wonder of all the changes taking place...as I head over to Growgoddess' blog..... :bong2:

 

Last year our apple tree was so loaded with apples, the branches broke. Nice apples this year also, even though we don't eat them. Give them to hunters for the deer.

 

Still treating the one plant for spider mites, mostly gone. Treat every three days with something different, see what happens.

 

One of three plants has nice buds, one just starting to bud, and other one is a Thanksgiving harvest. Might have to brush the snow off that one. lol

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I've successfully sprayed away mites with vigorous cold water sprays every 6-7 days for 3 weeks.

 

I stuck each of my vegging plants into the shower cubical, then thoroughly sprayed them with cold tap well water; both under the leaves and from above, while rotating and shaking the plant's main stem. I squirted water from a hand-held shower head hose, but with the shower head removed, with my thumb over the end, like you would a garden hose. Come to think of it, I actually took plants outdoors at night when the neighbors couldn't see, to spray them vigorously with the garden hose before I settled on squirting them in the shower instead.

 

The force of the water did squirt off bits of leaves, so it was in no way gentle. I've even turned the plants upside down to spray more vigorously at the bottom of the leaves where the mites stay. None of this seemed to harm the plants, since they are vegging and recover quickly.

 

This is mechanical removal of mites and eggs, with the cold water being offensive to mites' well being. 

 

I wonder how much over-kill I was practicing. Can you get away with less vigorous, yet through spraying? Getting under the leaves is essential, but when is too much squirting occurring?

 

I discovered the "cold water mite cure" when I was trying to cut down on how much mite treatment I used, by first spraying off the plants to reduce the population, then waiting 7 days to spray with the actual mite killer solution (I used Azamax). I found that if I sprayed a few times with cold water over a few weeks, I didn't need the Azamax at all.

 

My mite infestation was "light", but this method is so vigorous that I can't see it mattering how bad an infestation is when you start. If the mites have made it into the grow medium or been washed their from your spraying, perhaps you'd need to apply Azamax to the roots.

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This is an outdoor grow. I've used the Azamax in previous years.

 

I will try to cold water spray. Was about to try to Dawn dish soap in spray bottle. Plan is to spray a herb spray or Dawn dish soap on the three day schedule until all traces of mites are gone. Then go to a weekly spray with something.

 

Removed all the lower branches of the one plant today, easier to spray the rest of plant.

 

Now need to get the soil taken care of. Will try the Azamax on the soil. Thanks

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Sprayed the one plant with cold water this afternoon, went out this evening and checked the plant, only see a few eggs. Tomorrow I will spray the other plants with cold water.

 

Green Cure did not work very good for me. SNS 217 seemed to work better, but then more expensive as it is premixed.

 

Plan is to spray every 3 days to keep mites down. Will spray all plants with the cold water, but keep looking on underside of leaves.

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I've been doing the cold water treatment on the leaves and mites are gone and only a few eggs left. I put water in refrigerator to keep cold, then take outside to spray.

 

This method is working great, thank you to Grassmatch and Rockinsteady for suggesting this method.

 

Check plants every three days for any sign of mites and spray the cold water twice a week. Always spray the plants in mornings.

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  • 7 months later...

Seems even after 6 years the mite train is still going, been hopping around meeting randys for clones the past few months, out of about a dozen people...one had clean plants, a month later, i picked up from same person...bam dirty, although it was localized to 2 critical kush clones, still...unbelievable that people still pass these around for a few extra bucks. Ive since returned to seed banks again.( even the ones that appeared clean on initial inspection, were later revealed to just of been cleaned up with the sole intention of concealing the fact the plants had mites). 2 people even had the audacity to try to sell me root aphid infested plants, get there, check for mites, second thing..pull a couple out of the solo cups and have a look...even worse than mites imo...

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will someone provide a picture of a "root aphid" please? I see them online but cant seem to find one in my dirt. There are millions of other little crawling composters but I dont see the aphids in the roots.

I've mentioned before, in spring time the ants come in and hunt. they find a plant and start farming aphids, I've personally seen them, even this year, but no aphids in the roots. The ants farm them on undersides of leaves and stems, suck their butts, and then leave when they die/fly.

 

It was one plant, as it is most years, that they decide to colonize and farm. Sometimes i let them be, others I wage war(against the ants strangely,lol)

 

anyways its always been in the veg room and ants dont appreciate neem oil, peppermint oil, thyme oil, rosemary oil, lavender oil, dlimonene etc, and all of those kill the aphids instantly when I spray the ants.

I wouldnt use any but the neem for a soil drench if I had to, but the rest(diluted) kill anything in the garden when applied in my experience. A cursory dip of stranger clones seems like good protocol to me.

 

None of those bugs ever mattered to me except in early veg and newly rooted clones.

Edited by grassmatch
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Minor mite infestation. I use Dr Bronner's Peppermint Soap at 1 tsp/quart h20, spray plants liberally top & underside during every watering. Plants (all in flower now) are fine with it. I haven't seen any mites for a couple of weeks now including on my "susceptible" strain.

 

http://www.lisabronner.com/spraying-for-garden-pests/suggests that this is good (I mean BAD) for aphids also. 

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I dont have any pics on hand of root aphids, but there are two varietys or it might just be stages, in the case of the clones i took a peek at, you pop them out of the cup and givd it a twirl, looking for waxy looking stuff or small green bugs, usually clustered around a big fat root. Its a scary sight when you see it irl.

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Hello, I seen your post. I have an indoor grow room that I built to be basically as clean as a surgical room running hydroponics with a very stern water treatment method to make sure nothing but good stuff is flowing around at 67'F in the water. I use 2 1k hps lights and have my intake and exhaust both on the same 6 inch metal vent pipe using Y fittings at both ends. I have a 750 CFM inline fan AFTER the two lights and on the exhaust end of the tube I have another 750 CFM at the end in a Y fitting exhausting both the room and lights out one pipe. I also created another 7" intake giving myself a total of 13 inches of intake to 6 inches of 750 CFM exhaust with a 36" carbon filter muffler at the very end before going outside. The room is only 7'X7'x9' so the positive air exchange is awesome. Hepa filters on both intakes with just bug screening on the exhaust. I STILL SOMEHOW GOT SPIDER MITES and am looking to try something new to add to my rotation. I will post my entire grow journal with pictures if you'd like. But I'm very interested in trying some out!

I was told it was best to push your inline fans thru the lite, not s uck it from the lite, This person said the heat from the lights will wear my inline out faster, makes sense to me!

 

Peace

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